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Greater Dhaka Sustainable Urban Transport Project (RRP BAN 42169) TA: TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT AND IMPROVED TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT IN GCC A. TA Description 1. The Government of Bangladesh has requested a loan in the amount of $160 million from ADB to help finance the Greater Dhaka Sustainable Urban Transport Project. The Project will improve the quality of life within the Gazipur City Corporation (GCC), which forms part of north Greater Dhaka, through the delivery of a more efficient and sustainable Urban Transport System (UTS), including a 20 kilometer Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor. 2. In Bangladesh, there are different levels of local authority and administration. Large urban areas have the status of City Corporation, while smaller urban areas in the outskirts of major cities have the status of “Pourashava” and rural villages have the status of “Upazillas”. City Corporations have more administrative independence (they refer directly to the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives - MLGRDC) and more technical capacities (they include a large Engineering Department) than Pourashavas and Upazillas, which have no direct access to the Ministry and no technical capacity (for any civil works project, they are supported by the Local Government Engineering Department - LGED, under the MLGRDC). The GCC is a new City Corporation which will be created before the end of the year and will merge Tongi and Gazipur Pourashavas, as well as several small Upazilas in between, with an estimated official population of 1 million, under a single jurisdiction and administrative level. The new GCC is part of a proposal to create 7 additional City Corporations in Bangladesh, mostly around Dhaka, to organize its future growth. The project is currently being reviewed by the Parliament. In parallel, former Dhaka City Corporation has been split into two city corporations, Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) and Dhaka South City Corporation. The new City Corporations will have higher institutional capacity as they will include more developed technical departments. In a sense, they will depend less on the government and will be more able to manage themselves. 3. The GCC concerned area, which touches the northern end of DNCC, is about 15 kilometers long and 10 kilometers wide, and concentrates an official population of approximately 1 million inhabitants, and an additional floating population of 1 million of mostly rural migrants working in the garment factories. The area is an industrial hub, mixing residential and commercial/industrial land, in quite a disorganized manner. Only in the immediate vicinity of the corridors, there are 272 garment factories. The first objective of the proposed CDTA is to revise the land-use plan, focusing on increasing density around the corridor to be restructured by the project, notably around the BRT stations. This will contribute to the organization of the urban growth. 4. GCC's current traffic is characterized by the following modal split: (i) 22% of trips are made by private modes; (ii) 40% by public transport, i.e buses; and (iii) 38% are still non- motorized, made on foot or by cycle-rickshaws. The high level of congestion and pollution result from: (i) rapid motorization; (ii) weak strategic road network accounting for only 10% of the urban area whereas the required ratio is 25%; (iii) weak traffic management to organize the dense and anarchical mix of many competing modes; (iv) lack of transport demand management, and (v) inefficient public transport services. The situation in road-based traffic collisions is deteriorating, mostly affecting pedestrians (thus the poorest) who represent up to 50% of road accident fatalities in GCC streets. This safety issue becomes even more acute when looked at from a gender perspective. 80% of garment workers are women and a large portion of them commute on foot. The second objective of the proposed CDTA is to improve traffic management and traffic rules enforcement in order to improve this situation. 2 5. This CDTA will improve general quality of life and situation of the poorest through the delivery of adapted solutions for traffic management, in favor of non-motorized transport and public transport. Safety of pedestrians will be improved and congestion will be reduced. The poor and the socially excluded will benefit from the project both directly and indirectly. B. Impact and Outcome 6. The impact of the technical assistance (TA) will be a developed sustainable urban transport system within GCC. The outcome of the TA will be improved strategic and integrated urban planning, and traffic management in GCC. C. Methodology and Key Activities 7. Output 1: Urban planning capacity improved. The first output of the proposed CDTA will design and propose a plan to implement an integrated urban development strategy along the GCC project corridor, including (i) revising the detailed area plan (DAP) of GCC to integrate the land-use and transport plans, (ii) drafting GCC urban development strategy through a large participatory approach, (iii) drafting and proposing pilot detailed land-use plans, focusing on increasing density and location of public facilities around the BRT stations, following the Transit- Oriented Development (TOD) concept, (iv) Proposing a mechanism to attract private sector participation to implement the proposed land-use plans around BRT stations through PPP schemes, (v) assessing and proposing best adapted solutions and mechanisms to capture part of the land added-value along the project corridor (such as transfer-development rights, public- private partnership (PPP) schemes, or real estate and property tax) to finance GCC infrastructures improvement, and (vi) drafting a parking plan within GCC. The urban development strategy and related activities, including a detailed cartography on the revised GCC’s DAP will form part of the Final Report of the consultant. 8. Output 2: Traffic management system and capacity improved. The second output of the proposed CDTA will enhance traffic management and traffic rules enforcement through (i) preparing and conducting a comprehensive capacity building program for the Traffic Police on traffic management, traffic regulations enforcement, and parking policy, (ii) reviewing in detail the existing regulation and policies for traffic management and parking, and proposing improvements, (iii) Reviewing existing procedures of Traffic Police intervention and fines policy, and proposing improvements, (iv) drafting, approving and enforcing parking and hawkers policy, (v) conducting trainings to ensure proper operation and maintenance of the facilities and equipments provided to the Traffic Police under the project, (vi) conducting awareness campaigns on proper traffic behavior, road safety, and air quality, (vii) revising vehicle emissions standards and enforcement policy, and (viii) assessing opportunities and proposing a framework to organize feeder services to the BRT with rickshaws and private bus operators associations, under the leadership of GCC. The consultant will draft, design, and print a training manual on best practices and mechanisms for traffic management and traffic rules enforcement, to be distributed to every new traffic enforcer. 9. The CDTA also includes comprehensive capacity building programs for key stakeholders and workshops organized for sharing information and raising awareness. Resource person(s) will make presentations to workshop participants to provide the latest knowledge and international best practices on TOD, land added-value capture, parking plans and policies, traffic management, and traffic regulations enforcement. Following those trainings and workshops, manuals for traffic management and cartography for the urban development strategy will be produced. 3 D. Implementation Arrangements 10. The Local Government Engineering Division (LGED) under the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives (MLGRDC) will be the Executing Agency. LGED has good references and capacity in undertaking ADB and other Development Partners projects in the sector of municipal infrastructure development in Bangladesh, such as the Urban Governance and Infrastructure Improvement Project (UGIIP I and II on-going).1 LGED has the capacity and is legitimate to implement this CDTA since it is by mandate in charge of supporting local governments (mostly Pourashavas and Upazilas) for municipal infrastructure development. LGED has therefore traditionally good relations with local governments and will support the transition from Pourashavas and Upazilas into new City Corporations. Nonetheless, LGED lacks expertise and capacity in urban planning. External expertise is therefore required to seize the opportunity of GCC creation and revise its land use plan in an integrated manner, under the monitoring of LGED. The CDTA proposes to build the capacity of both institutions through this pilot planning exercise. 11. The GCC will be the implementing agency for the first output (urban development strategy) of the proposed TA, and the Traffic Police will be the implementing agency for the second output (traffic management). For convenience, we use the term “Traffic Police” as the general term designing the three entities in charge of traffic management, having jurisdiction in the project area, i.e: (i) the Divisional Commission for North Traffic of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), (ii) the Highway Traffic Police (HTP), and (iii) the Gazipur District Traffic Police (GDTP). Both implementing agencies

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